Lecture 3 - Ideological messages and subversion

gracious, noble, powerful, promotes the monarchy

hymn “god save the queen” has the same message

it criticizes the regime (god save the queen - the fascist regime, … no future,…)

the cover suggests that the Queen herself is manipulated by the system (blinded & muted)

1. The Queen has loosened up and has humour

2. rock has given in to the establishment

but since Queen (band) played GSTQ as their last song it could be band related

1. a tongue-in-cheek tribute to british culture, the queen DID have humour and irony

the characters “sendervictorious” and “appyandglorious”

as a refernce to lyrics of the hymn, spoken as with british accent

the queen appears as a pop icon like Elvis, Marilyn Monroe

4 pictures -> not unique, can be replicated?

(think of statue of roman emperors where head could be changed)

a pursuit of total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best that is known and thought in the world (closely connected to reading)

the portrait, but with the fictional dictator’s face on it

the dictator is very trans/homophobic so turning him into a “queen” (slng term in community) makes it even more poignant

• born 1921 to Welsh working class family

• later became professor for drama at Cambridge (unusual for late 60s for workling class)

• he had a big role in establishing cultural studies at universities

• later worked as an adult educator

• especially critical of Margaret Thatcher

• died in 1988

  
  

he portrays going to a soccer game as an act of culuture the same way as going to the opera is

he also tried to g against the diviion of “high and low culture”

• born in 1822

• started his career as a teacher, then became school inspector and travelled all over Britain

• honorary professor of poetry at Oxford (“Dover Beach”)

• most influental as a social critic with his book “culuture and anarchy” (1869)

• died in 1888 (same lifespan as Williams, off by 1 year)

he thought a certain level of education was necessary to make responsible political decisions

giving the vote to peole who are not equipped to use it wisely

-> uneducated people vote others like them into office

mission: not only lift the amount of educated people but also lift the level of their education

the best knowledge and thought of the time, and a true source of sweetness and light

it does not try to teach down to the level of inferior classes, it seeks to do away with classes to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere

“A mans life on each day depends for its solidity and value on whether he reads and far more still, on what he reads”

man-> universal masculine, and women didn’t have the vote anyway

• born in 1932 in Jamaica

• cam eto UK in 1951

• was a teacher, cultural theorist

• later became director of the Centre for Contemporary cultural studies in Birmingham (CCCSB)

• focused on taking “low culture” seriously

• marxist scholar

• had a different approach than his white colleagues, had a productive post of observation

in each class there are born a certain number of natures with a curiosity about their best self, with a bent for seeing things as they are, for perfection

-> trying to get away from an elitist approach, however working class doesnt always have the means to explore curiosity

protectiona gainst blind faith in machinery, which would otherwise lead to disorder and anarchy

until around the 1950s, when Williams and Herder etc came along

(ironic because they are who Arnold talked about, from poor background, and when they moved forward, they redifined his definition of culture)

• he didn’t wish to be associated with the power structures hidden in the canon

• he was pro inclusion of women in the canon

• talks about “the gendered nature of the reading list”

1. change elements

2. reject it entirely

3. broaden it